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Interest in developing institutional explanations of political and economic behavior has blossomed among social scientists since the early 1980s. Three intellectual perspectives are now prevalent: rational choice theory, historical institutionalism and a new school of organizational analysis. This paper summarizes, compares and contrasts these views and suggests ways in which cross‐fertilization may be achieved. Particular attention is paid to how the insights of organizational analysis and historical institutionalism can be blended to provide fruitful avenues of research and theorizing, especially with regard to the production, adoption, and mobilization of ideas by decision makers.

This double volume presents the state of the art in research on the microfoundations of institutions. In this introductory chapter, we develop an overview of where the emerging microfoundational agenda in institutional theory stands and in which direction it is moving. We discuss the questions of what microfoundations of institutions are, what the “micro” in microfoundations represents, why we use the plural form (microfoundations vs microfoundation), why microfoundations of institutions are needed, and how microfoundations can be studied. Specifically, we highlight that there are several traditions of microfoundational research, and we outline a cognitive, a communicative and a behavioral perspective. In addition, we explain that scholars tend to think of microfoundations in terms of an agency, levels, or mechanisms argument. We delineate key challenges and opportunities for future research and explain why we believe that the debate on microfoundations will become a defining element in the further development of institutional theory.

We focus on the internal workings of a university organization’s response to institutional plurality. In the field of higher education, both organizations and individuals are prescribed competing demands due to academic logic and the logic of managerialism. We interpret six individual experiences of institutional plurality and illuminate how social position, disposition, emotions, and apprehension regarding plurality affect their response to shifting emphases in the logics of the university. In addition, we show that although there may appear to be harmony in the organizational-level response to institutional plurality, turmoil may be affecting the organization’s members, highlighting the importance of looking at how people experience institutional logic multiplicity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how well water companies in four different nationalities and political cultures are engaged in the CSR discourse. This question is relevant after more than 20 years of privatization of the public administration's bureaucracy and its adoption of management styles, behaviours and thinking from the private business sphere. This paper seeks to critically examine how water companies take part in the CSR discourse, by which institutional mechanisms this managerial “thinking” in terms of institutional “logics” has come about, and which adopted “meanings” lie behind.

The paper shows a qualitatively, ethnographic investigation and discourse analysis of privatized water companies from four different political and market economy nations; small- and medium-sized water companies from the social-democratic state of Denmark; large size companies from the conservative and liberal market economy of the UK; large- and multinational companies from the USA and medium-, large- and multinationals from South Africa. Seven companies are chosen in each country from the smallest to the largest in order to obtain maximum variety and express analytical generalizations across nations and company sizes if possible.

The findings of the cross-geographical, -political, -market economical study of maximum variety of companies show how institutional logics are transferring from “implicit” CSR towards “explicit” CSR through coercive, normative and mimetic isomorphism: companies that are only engaged in coercive isomorphic “implicit” CSR show a hesitant and resistant engagement, whereas companies engaging in normative and mimetic isomorphic “explicit” CSR translate their discourses in a more authentic way. However, the findings also question the credibility of this authenticity when most CSR-reports from the water companies are made without third party accreditation, without performance indicators and only through narratives that are hard to scrutinize.

The research has limitations towards the discourse analysis, which in Denmark was possible to conduct from both oral texts such as interviews, observation studies and document analysis, whereas in the UK, the USA and South Africa is based only on written texts from documents, CSR-reports, annual reports and written communications between regulators and companies. The research implications suggest a further replication of the findings from a more in-depth analysis of the institutional logics in these companies in the UK, the USA and South Africa by replication of the study from Denmark.

The practical implications of this study suggest a transformation of political instrumentation from rule-setting to incentives making to make public water service companies even more engaged in “explicit” CSR to obtain more authenticity and a higher level of legitimacy in the field compared to the strong tradition of “explicit” CSR seen in the private business sphere.

The originality and value of this research is shown by the empirical findings of the theoretical suggestions by Matten and Moon in how “implicit” CSR is transferred to “explicit” CSR in the privatization of public service companies in the water sector across nations, cultures, political and market economical spheres. It shows through the discourse analysis of institutional logics how institutional isomorphism is prevalent in this sector and how New Public Management systems need to conform from instrumental rule-making to incentive-making to make public service adopt CSR in a more authentic way.

This paper presents a new mixed methods approach which allows researchers to scan industry sectors for institutional change periods and to locate periods of significant institutional change agency.

The approach is grounded on the institutional logics perspective and on institutional entrepreneurship theory and combines an automated quantitative content analysis with a cognitive mapping exercise.

The paper describes the development of this approach and its application to the urban water management sector of Australia. Three periods of significant institutional change agency are identified, described and discussed.

The paper puts forward a new methodological approach that enables a robust and objective identification of actor-driven institutional change periods which can be used as a precursor for more targeted qualitative inquiries into institutional change research.

Institutional pluralism is an intriguing phenomenon for institutional scholars. How the balance among logics evolves within a field and what kind of trajectories a set of logics may experience over a long-term period remain unclear. In particular, extant literature tends too often to downplay institutional complexity by focusing on two dominant logics, and to ignore modes of interaction among logics other than competition. In order to address these issues, we offer a novel methodology for measuring institutional complexity – multiple institutional logics and their change. In particular, we highlight the utility of descendent hierarchical classification models, and demonstrate their relevance by analyzing articles published in a leading French trade journal over more than 100 years to study logics related to workplace in the construction industry. We identify a pool of six field-structuring logics over a period of one century; they reveal the composite nature of such logics, which we characterize as combining several higher institutional orders. Additionally, our results bring to light new mechanisms that can explain the composition of institutional logics.

As institutional theory increasingly looks to the micro-level for explanations of macro-level institutional processes, institutional scholars need to pay closer attention to the role of emotions in invigorating institutional processes. I argue that attending to emotions is most likely to enrich institutional analysis, if scholars take inspiration from theories that conceptualize emotions as relational and inter-subjective, rather than intra-personal, because the former would be more compatible with institutional theory’s relational roots. I review such promising theories that include symbolic interactionism, psychoanalytic and psychodynamic perspectives, moral psychology, and social movements. I conclude by outlining several possible research questions that might be inspired by attending to the role of emotions in institutional processes. I argue that such research can enrich the understanding of embedded agency, power, and the use of theorization by institutional change agents, as well as introduce a hereto neglected affective facet into the study of institutional logics.

Institutional pluralism is an intriguing phenomenon for institutional scholars. How the balance among logics evolves within a field and what kind of trajectories a set of logics may experience over a long-term period remain unclear. In particular, extant literature tends too often to downplay institutional complexity by focusing on two dominant logics, and to ignore modes of interaction among logics other than competition. In order to address these issues, we offer a novel methodology for measuring institutional complexity – multiple institutional logics and their change. In particular, we highlight the utility of descendent hierarchical classification models, and demonstrate their relevance by analyzing articles published in a leading French trade journal over more than 100 years to study logics related to workplace in the construction industry. We identify a pool of six field-structuring logics over a period of one century; they reveal the composite nature of such logics, which we characterize as combining several higher institutional orders. Additionally, our results bring to light new mechanisms that can explain the composition of institutional logics.